


Hate to Love

by jaypeg



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Depression, Grief/Mourning, Klance Week 2016, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 16:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7691902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaypeg/pseuds/jaypeg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There is an emptiness in Keith that aches so much it feels like he’s been ripped in two. He barely eats, sleep has become almost nonexistent by this point, and all of his free time has been filled up with training. He has not cried once.</p>
<p>Keith feels like he’s not even alive anymore."</p>
<p>For Klance Week Day 2: Love/Hate</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hate to Love

There is an emptiness in Keith that aches so much it feels like he’s been ripped in two. He barely eats, sleep has become almost nonexistent by this point, and all of his free time has been filled up with training. He has not cried once.

Keith feels like he’s not even alive anymore.

Time has all but stopped existing with Keith stuck in some inescapable limbo. The seconds slip into minutes, into hours, into days, into eternity. The only way he can even tell that time is passing is by the healing bruises and cuts that litter his body from battle after battle, training session after training session.

He knows the rest of the team worries about him, but he can’t bring himself to care. He tried, at first. He tried to smile, to talk more, to be with the team outside of combat. He tried until he saw that it wasn’t working, that everyone would frown at him when he wasn’t looking, that they didn’t believe he was coping well at all.

It takes longer than Keith expected it to but finally, after one more too-close battle in a long string of too-close battles recently, Shiro corners Keith as soon as he steps out of his lion. “Keith, you can’t keep going on like this.”

“I’m fine.”

“Every time we go out there, you keep cutting things closer and closer.” Shiro is using his serious tone he saves only for those times he’s really disappointed in his team. It’s the one the others call his “dad voice.” “If you keep going on like this, one of these days the Galra won’t be missing their shots.”

“It’s fine, Shiro. I have everything handled fine. You don’t have to worry about me.” They really don’t. Keith is just as capable now as he’s always been. Sure, he’s been making riskier moves lately but they’ve been just as successful as they’ve ever been when forming Voltron.

“I know it’s been hard on you,” Shiro says, voice softer this time. “It’s been hard on all of us, especially you, but Lance wouldn’t want you to carry on like this.”

Keith hates the pity that’s practically dripping from those words. He hates that it’s not just Shiro but everyone who treats him like he’ll collapse at the slightest breeze. He’s tired of everyone walking on eggshells around him and that no one will just talk about what happened, as if not mentioning it to Keith will make the reality any less painful to him, any less real.

“Lance is _dead_ , Shiro! What he would or wouldn’t want doesn’t matter anymore because he can’t want anything anymore.” After all this time of feeling nothing, suddenly Keith can’t help but feel _everything_. He’s so full of sadness and horror and pure _rage_ that for once he doesn’t feel like the emptiness will swallow him whole. For the first time in weeks, maybe even months, Keith senses that inferno inside him that he’d always known had meant he was alive.

“Keith, please. Don’t say that. You love him.”

“No I don’t! I _hate_ him! I hate that bastard!” Keith’s hands latch onto Shiro’s shoulders and shove him against the still warm metal of Red with a strength he hasn’t felt in so long. “He left me! I loved him, Shiro, and he left me anyways. Now I’m alone and he’s never coming back and I hate him for that.”

“Lance didn’t choose to leave us, Keith. You know that.” The pity Keith can see radiating from Shiro’s whole body have brought a wetness to the other’s eyes. Keith senses that he’s broken Shiro’s heart just like Lance did that day and suddenly Keith can’t look his leader in the face.

“He did, Shiro. Lance chose to leave me because he’s the one that jumped in front of me to take that blast. He knew he couldn’t survive it and he still did it anyway like the stubborn idiot he was! I’ll always be grateful that he saved my life, but I can never forgive him for sacrificing himself for me. I’m not worth that price.”

Shiro moves from his spot against Red and envelops Keith in his arms. All of Keith’s anger evaporates, the fire burning inside him leeched away by Shiro’s warmth. The strength in Keith’s legs vanishes and he finds himself collapsing into Shiro’s hug, head tucked underneath Shiro’s.

“He thought the same of you, too.” Shiro murmurs, his voice just barely carrying its way to Keith. “He never could have sat by and watched you get hurt. None of us could have. We’re your team. He was your–”

“He was my _everything_ , Shiro. I lost everything that day.” Without Lance, what did Keith have to live for anymore?

“Not everything. You still have the team. You still have Red. We may not be Lance, but aren’t we enough? Can’t you try moving forward, getting better, for us if not for him?”

Keith had tried that before. It only made the ache in his chest worse knowing that he wasn’t enough for them. Maybe never would be ever again, now that Lance was gone. Although Keith said nothing, something must have shown on his face.

“For yourself then,” Shiro amended.

“Maybe.” Maybe it was time for Keith to stop thinking about living without Lance and to start thinking about living with himself. “I’ll do the best that I can.”


End file.
